Turning the Flywheel: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great

GENIUS OF THE AND Builders of greatness reject the “Tyranny of the OR” and embrace the “Genius of the AND.” They embrace both extremes across a number of dimensions at the same time. For example, creativity AND discipline, freedom AND responsibility, confront the brutal facts AND never lose faith, empirical validation AND decisive action, bounded r

resource engine. Does the flywheel fit

Great by Choice. Morten and I systematically studied small entrepreneurial companies that became the 10X winners

the Stockdale Paradox: Retain absolute faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, and at the same time, exercise the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. This concept is fully developed in the book Good to Great.

Using the components you’ve identified (keeping it to four to six), sketch the flywheel. Where does the flywheel start—what’s the top of the loop?

Think of it this way. Suppose you have, say, six components in the flywheel, and you score your performance in each from 1 to 10. What happens if your execution scores are 9, 10, 8, 3, 9, and 10? The entire flywheel stalls at the component scoring 3. To regain momentum, you need to bring that 3 up to at least an 8.

Notice the inexorable logic. Trace your way around

ask, “What do these successes and disappointments tell us about the possible components of our flywheel?

The critical question is not, will you get luck? But what will you do with the luck that you get? If you get a high return on a luck event, it can add a big boost of momentum to the flywheel. Conversely, if you are ill-prepared to absorb a bad-luck event, it can stall or imperil the flywheel. This concept is fully developed in the book Great by Cho